HM orders SIT to trace Najeeb after students siege at JNU
- by Leah Brady
- in Worldwide
- — Oct 21, 2016
The decision came hours after Union home minister Rajnath Singh said a special Delhi Police team will look for Najeeb Ahmed who apparently disappeared after a thrashing by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. He also told the media that if the protestors tried to stop him from attending an academic council meeting on Thursday afternoon, he would call the police.
Rejecting allegations of inaction, Kumar said that they had written to the police about the missing student and that an inquiry by the university would be expedited with the "guilty" punished.
The protesting students are demanding that the JNU administration appeal to Najeeb to return without any fear of victimisation.
Ahmed had gone missing on the night of 14 October from the university hostel Mahi-Mandvi after a brawl with a few ABVP students.
Debunking the kidnapping theory that has been doing the rounds ever since Najeeb went missing, she said, "We haven't got any CCTV footage but an eyewitness saw him going out of the Parthasarathy Rocks area".
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The United Nations said it was "following this situation with great concern" and urged both sides to exercise restraint.
Criticizing the students for confining Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar and other officials inside the building, Rijiju said, "JNU is a big institution. We are lying outside the administrative block and have told them if they want to walk over us and leave, they are free". Electricity and all kind of supplies are here.
The VC had this morning warned the students of strict action over the "illegal confinement". The Protesting student is lawing that we care of Najib Ahmed. "Students are not even allowing wives of officials to meet", he added.
A similar incident took place at Kolkata's Jadavpur University, another hub of left-leaning student unions.
"The blockade is due to the insensitive way of handling the matter of Najeeb Ahmed - the violence against him by ABVP which led to him missing from the campus for over five days now and the JNU administration trying to shield the culprits while refusing to lodge an FIR", the JNUSU President said. He also mentioned that he was forced to stay in his office since 2:30pm without food, and had to sleep on the floor. He said the university had already met with their demands. The university reportedly approached police to file the FIR only to learn that his family had already done so. The police also announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for any person who provides information on Najeeb.
